COMPARISON OF SMELTING TECHNOLOGIES

Thomas W. Gonzales
Hatch
4110 North Scottdale Road, Scottsdale, AZ
(*Corresponding author: tom.gonzales@hatch.com)

Gary Walters
Hatch
Sheridan Science & Technology Park, 2800 Speakman Drive, Mississauga, Canada L5K 2R7

Matthew White
Hatch
61 Petrie Terrace, Brisbane City QLD 4000, Australia

ASTRACT

The copper smelting industry has transitioned into the 21st century compliant with environmental
regulations, new smelter installations and brown field expansions. The industry faces new challenges as
copper in concentrate grades have decreased while contained impurities have increased. A new
benchmarking survey was undertaken to update the last survey of 2016 for operating copper smelters in the
world. The information collected was separated based on primary smelting technology rather than by
geographical location and supplemented from published literature. Each smelting technology’s unique use
of specialized process equipment, concentrate smelting capacity, and impurity flexibility are discussed

KEYWORDS

Ausmelt®, Bottom blown smelting and converting, Isasmelt®, Outotec Flash Smelting®

INTRODUCTION

The 20th century was a remarkable time for the growth of copper smelting. Electric, blast and
reverberator furnaces dominated the smelting technology well past WWII. In the 1970s, SO2 regulations and
high energy cost drove the development of new primary smelting technology. Technological advancements
decreased energy consumption and enriched sulfur dioxide concentrations of the process off-gas to levels
where sulfur capture in sulfuric acid plants was economically viable. The new smelting technologies began
to replace reverberatory and electric furnaces starting in the late 1940s. A new paradigm in copper smelting
was established and the enabler was then Outkumpu’s® flash smelting technology from the 1940s through
to today. Now, Outotec had become the dominant primary smelting technology with over 44 copper flash
smelting furnace installations world-wide.

Figure 1 shows the historical installation statistics of primary smelting technologies over the last 70
years (ICSG 2018). The dominance and acceptance of the Outotec® smelting technology from the 1940s to
current can be seen. Isasmelt® technology for copper was introduced in the 1970s and did not see
advancement in new installations until the 1990s through today. Isasmelt® has 12 world-wide copper furnace
installations to date. Mitsubishi® also introduced continuous smelting and converting technology in the
1970s, but had no new installations until the 1990s with a total of 5 copper smelters. Outotec Ausmelt®
smelting technology had 3 installations in the 1990s and totals 10 furnaces. Most recently the Chinese
technology of Bottom Blown and Submerged Lance Smelting began commercial operations in 2005 for total
installations of 11, mostly in China. Other technologies, such as, El Teniente, Noranda, Inco, and Vanyukov
furnaces have contributed to the overall global smelting capacity, but have not penetrated the smelting
industry to challenge the existing dominant smelting technologies. The technology distribution in Figure 1
also shows flash smelting technology for sulfide concentrate domination untill 2000, bottom blow
technology has become the preference in China. Currently, China is the only country building new smelting
capacity. Isasmelt® technology also seen a large increase in installations in the current decade.

18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Flash Smelting Isamelt Ausmelt MIT BBC/SLS

Figure 1 History of smelting technology installations

Each technology has its own differentiation and for the sake of brevity each technology will not be
described in detail. In summary, Outotec® flash furnace is suspension smelting while Isasmelt®, Ausmelt®,
Mitsubishi and BBC/SLS are bath smelting. Mitsubishi® is continuous with no phase change through the
process with matte and slag settling and converting performed in different furnaces. Although Mitsubishi®
technology is mentioned, the technology has not significantly progressed relative to the other smelting
technologies and is only offered at a capacity of 1 Mtpa of concentrate. This capacity does not offer the
economies of scale needed in today’s custom concentrate treatment market to be competitive as a single
processing line. However, integrated mining companies may see advantage in this technology for
incremental expansions. BBC/SLS offer continuous flowsheets in recent installations. Isasmelt® and
Ausmelt® require a separate furnace for matte and slag separation and downstream Peirce Smith converting.
However, a new Isaconvert® is being commission in Zambia in 2019. Outotec flash converting requires
granulation of matte and grinding before converting. Table 1 shows the combination of each smelting
technology and downstream converting equipment.

Table 1. Comparison of smelting technology configurations

Smelting Matte/Slag Converting Flash BBC/SCLR Waste Heat
Technology Settling Furnace PSC Converting Converting Boiler
Flash No Yes Yes No Yes
Furnace
Isa Smelt Yes Yes No No Yes
Ausmelt Yes Yes No No Yes
BBC/SLS No Yes No Yes Yes
 DISCUSSION
Concentrate characteristics

Copper in mine head grade has been decreasing since the 1990s as shown in Figure 1, this trend has
caused copper in concentrate to decrease from 27% in 2004 down to 23.5% in 2018 in blended smelter feed.
The decrease represents a reduction of 13% in smelting copper output.

Figure 2. Mine head grade trends (weighted paid copper)

The decrease in copper is replaced with increase in iron and silica in the concentrate as shown in
Table 2. The significant drop in copper in concentrate has decreased the new copper capacity of most
smelters. Smelters have responded by purchasing high copper grade reverts where available, shift from
processing revert in converters to the primary furnaces, addition of other cold material such as slag or tailings
from slag flotation, and purchase of copper scrap to keep the copper smelter at design copper capacity. The
other significant change is off-gas constraints are being seen from now undersized waste heat boilers. The
addition of cold materials keeps the oxygen enrichment high, allowing for higher feed rate at the lower
copper grade, and off-gas volumes are kept to within the waste heat boiler design flow.

Walters, Gramer, Veenstra, Gonzales, Sterling, Jastrzebski, and Countering,(2016) noted, as copper
has decreased in current concentrates, impurities, namely Arsenic has increased to levels that may create
major issues for the smelters. The issues not only affect workplace hygiene but by-product quality and
Arsenic in slag and recycle dust.

Table 2. Concentrate specie trend

2004 Percent 2018 Percent
Cu 27.0 23.5
Fe 25 26.3
S 30.1 29.2
SiO2 7.1 9.0
As - 0.24

Past review of primary smelting technology for impurity deportment

Alvear (2006) and Wang, Guo, Tian, Tao, Mao, Baojun (2017) showed Arsenic deportment for
specific smelting technologies. Alvear (2006) summarized all the past impurity deportments for flash
smelting, Mitsubishi, and TSL furnaces concluding that agitated bath smelting was more efficient at
liberating impurities in the primary smelter than particle smelting. Wang, et al, expands on this work by
including Bottom Blown smelting (BBS/SKS/SLS) technology with the same conclusion. Based on survey
data custom smelters have been able to blend down the Arsenic content in smelter feed to manageable levels.
China has imposed an import limit of 0.5% Arsenic in copper concentrate. Concentrate traders are blending
concentrate to meet country or smelter treatment limits. Integrated mines with high Arsenic have installed
roasting capacity to remove the Arsenic in one process step and blend the calcine with other concentrate to
lower Arsenic input to the smelter. These strategies are effective to manage global Arsenic content in
concentrate to minimize the issues with treating high Arsenic in smelters.

All primary smelting and converting technologies require similar infrastructure, utilities, off-gas
handling, waste heat recovery, SO2 fixation, slag processing, weak acid treatment, labor and management.
Environmental compliance is a given at 99% sulfur capture and zero discharge for process water. These
ancillary categories are the lion’s share of capital for green field installations with little differentiation to
warrant discussion.

Outotec Flash Smelting®

The summary statistics for surveyed and published data for Outotec flash furnaces is shown in
Table 3. As can be seen, there is variation in furnace dimensions as the data represents 40 years of design
changes to increase furnace capacity from existing brown field expansions and new installations. The shift
from preheated combustion air for the concentrate burner to +60% oxygen enrichment and larger furnace
size have been the key changes that have allowed current smelting capacity to increase throughout the years.

Table 3. Outotec flash furnace parameters

Furnace Parameters Average Min Max
Reaction shaft Diameter m 5.9 4 7
Reaction shaft Height m 6.6 5.8 8.1
Reaction shaft Volume m3 189 78 312
3
Shaft Smelting Intensity tph/m 0.74 0.43 1.12
Settler Length m 20.6 15.3 29.5
Settler Width m 6.7 4.9 8.7
Settler Height m 2.4 1.5 3.5
Smelting Capacity tpd 3,288 1,240 5,900
Campaign Life years 7 4 9

1.2

0.8
SSI

0.6

0.4
R² = 0.7804
0.2

0
0 50 100 150 200 250
TPH Concentrate
Figure 3. SSI vs reaction shaft hourly smelting capacity

The reaction shaft is the key reaction section of the flash furnace and rationalization of the wide
range in shaft volume relative to smelting capacity does not yield good correlations when comparing the raw
data.
 Jones and Davenport showed that Specific Smelting Intensity (SSI) offers a method to normalize
the mass flow rate of concentrate to shaft volume. Each reaction shaft dimensions and tph concentrate mass
flow rate from the survey or published data was separated into SSI ranges versus capacity and the results are
shown in Figure 3. Flash furnaces operating above 200 tph of concentrate need an SSI above 0.8 tph/m3 or a
volume in the reaction shaft of 248 m3. Given that the highest SSI is 1.12 tph/m3 there may still be opportunity
for other flash furnaces operating at less than .8 tph/m3 to increase the smelting capacity of the furnace.

Other notable advantages of flash smelting is the length of campaign which is reported on average
as 7 years between refractory replacement of the settler walls. The daily smelting capacity with some smelters
are achieving tonnages ranging from 4,000 to 5,900 tpd of concentrate. The instantaneous daily rate and
annual operating time determine the smelter capacity. There is not a consistent measure of operating time by
each smelter, however, if 328 days a year is taken as a reasonable operating time where feed is going through
the flash furnace capacity ranges from 1.3M to 1.9M tpa of concentrate. It is reasonable to expect that flash
smelters can achieve sustained annual throughput of 1.6M tpa of concentrate.

Flash converting (FCF) was introduced in 1995 with the commissioning of the Kennecott-Outotec
Flash Converting process. Since then, three other flash converters have been in operation in China. Table 4
shows furnace dimensions and capacities. Flash converting furnace dimensions and capacity have also
increased since 1995 as newer FCFs were being commissioned in China. The high converting capacity and
campaign life are important advantages of FCFs.

Table 4. Outotec flash converting parameters

Furnace Parameters Average Min Max
Reaction shaft Diameter m 4.64 4.3 5
Reaction shaft Height m 6.6 6.0 7.0
3 114 87 137
Reaction shaft Volume m
3
Shaft Smelting Intensity tph/m 0.74 0.58 1.0
Settler Length m 18.9 18.8 19.0
Settler Width m 6.0 5.5 6.0
Settler Height m 2.5 1.9 3.0
Smelting Capacity tpd 1,950 1,240 2,100
Campaign Life years 4 1 6

Direct to blister flash smelting (DTB) was first introduced commercially in 1978 with the
commissioning of the KGHM Polska Miedz’ Glogow 2 smelter in Poland. In 1988, Western Mining
Cooperation commissioned the second commercial direct to blister installation at Olympic Dam in Australia,
which was subsequently replaced for a larger smelter in 1999. In 2008 Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) in
Zambia and in 2016 KGHM installed DTB furnaces. Currently four DTB are in operation globally. In these
smelters almost all the sulfur in concentrate is liberated inside the reaction shaft and produces blister copper.

Top submerged lance smelting

Glencore Technology’s Isasmelt® and Outotec Ausmelt® are the sole technology providers for
TSL smelting technology with 16 operating Isasmelt® furnaces and 10 Ausmelt® furnaces. Both are bath
smelting technologies and are similar with the lance design and roof profile being the major differences.
Table 5 shows the summary for the majority of operating Isa furnaces. The range of installed capacity is
wide with an overall average of less than 900,000 mtpa of concentrate. The most current installations at 1.2M
mtpa should be considered the upper benchmark capacity for the Isa technology.

Outotec Ausmelt® TSL smelting technology has similar dimensions to the Isasmelt® as shown in
Table 6. Increasing the diameter to 5m has allowed an increase in smelting capacity to 1.5M tpa at one
facility. The campaign life of 16 months on average is less than Isasmelt®.
 Table 5. Isasmelt® furnace dimension and capacity
Furnace Parameters Average Min Max
Vessel Height m 14.3 11 17
Vessel Diameter m 4.1 3.6 4.6
Working Volume m3 190.2 112 258
Feed rate tph 119 50 165
SSI tph/m3 0.635 0.37 0.79
Campaign Life months 24 21 31
Annual Capacity 870,000 350,000 1,200,000

Table 6. Ausmelt® furnace dimensions and capacity

Furnace Parameters Average Min Max
Vessel Diameter m 4.54 4 5
Campaign Life months 16 NA NA
Annual Capacity 582,500 200,000 1,600,000

Bottom blown smelting and converting technology

Bottom blown smelting and converting were first introduced in China in 2005 with 13 operating
smelters by 2018. Seven smelters are using Peirce Smith converting and the rest are using bottom blown
converting. We have not differentiated between BBS, SKS, SLS for primary smelting or for BBC or SCLR
converting and in one case fire refining performed in the converting furnace. Table 7 shows the dimensional
parameters and range of concentrate smelting capacities.

Table 7. BBS/SLS/SKS dimensions and capacity

Furnace Parameter Average Min Max
Length m 20.6 11.5 30
Diameter m 4.7 3.8 5
Volume m3 337 130 792
Capacity tpa concentrate 783,948 303,486 1,842,000

The primary smelting furnace has seen a 6-fold increase in smelting capacity since 2005. The
maximum smelting capacity is the second highest capacity of any smelting technology. The capacity increase
is due to the increase in volume of the furnace and ability to add more injectors along the length of the
furnace. Table 8 shows a 3.5-fold increase in matte converting capacity since 2005. The increase is due to
the increased volume and additional injectors.

Table 8. BBC/SCLR dimensions and capacity

Furnace Parameter Average Min Max
Length m 19.58 13.5 28
Diameter m 4.4 3.8 5
3
Volume m 308 153 549
Capacity tpd matte 1,315 654 2,347

CONCLUSIONS

A simple comparison of each of the technologies for primary smelting and converting are shown in
Table 9 and 10. The four dominant smelting technologies are compared in Table 9. Considering all ancillary
equipment is on the same level what remains is capacity, calendar availability, and campaign life. As
mentioned before each smelter has their own definition of availability where the numbers provided are not
comparable. What remains is capacity and campaign life. Outotec flash smelting has the highest capacity
and campaign life compared to the rest of the field. Outotec Ausmelt® is second with same concentrate
smelting capacity as bottom blown smelting with similar campaign life. Isasmelt® has higher campaign life
but much lower concentrate smelting capacity. Ausmelt and BBC/SCLR need to improve the campaign life
of the furnaces significantly to be competitive.

Table 9. Maximum primary smelting and converting technology comparison

Smelting Technology Maximum Capacity Maximum Campaign
tpa Concentrate life Years
Flash Furnace 1.9M 7
Isa Smelt 1.2M 2
Ausmelt 1.5M 1.4
BBC/SLS 1.5M 1.5

Matte converting, on a daily basis, shows an advantage for the Bottom Blown converter with
slightly more capacity, but shorter campaign life compared to flash converting. However, within the
campaign life of the flash converter and additional shutdown is needed for the BBC/SLS and the higher daily
capacity does not make up for this difference in lost throughput.

Table 10. Converting technology comparison

Converting Technology Capacity Matte tpd Campaign life Years
Flash Converter 2100 4
Isaconvert® N/A N/A
Ausmelt C3 Converting PSC N/A
BBC/SCLR 2347 1.5

Capital and operating costs are beyond the scope of this discussion and are key factors when
considering incremental capacity increase or a green field integrated smelting complex. Capital is the initial
investment and duration in the few years that it takes for installation. The financial gain is determined in the
remaining 20 years for achieving a good rate of return and NPV. Operating cost based on economies of scale
of installed capacity and operating time at full hourly concentrate feed rate is key in the financial performance
of the investment in the long run. Each of these key drivers must be studied on a case by case basis to
determine if there is a viable project.
REFERENCES

Alvear, G. R., Hunt, S. P., Zhang, B. (2006). Copper isasmelt-dealing with the impurity. Sohn International
Symposium, pp. 673-685
ICSG Publication (2018). World Copper Smelters Production Capacity 2014 to 2019.
Jones, D. M. & Davenport, W. G. (1996). Minimization of dust generation in Outokumpu flash smelting.
EPD Congress, pp. 91-94.
Walters, G., Cramer, M., Veenstra, R., Gonzales, T., Sterling, G., & Jastrzebski, M. (2016). Countering
declining copper grades through operational diagnostics and innovation. Proceedings of Copper
2016, pp. 433-444.
Wang, O., Guo, X., Tian, O., Jiang, T., Chen, M., & Zhao, B. (2017). Effects of matte grade in the distribution
of minor elements (Pb, Zn, As, Sb, and Bi) in the bottom blown copper smelting process. Metals,
7, 572.